


Duality (To be a Krogan)

by VenusTheMarvelTurtle



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Asshole Krogan, Body Dysphoria, Brain Surgery, Child Abuse, Coming of Age, Death in Childbirth, F/M, Gen, Genophage, Graphic Description of Corpses, Graphic Medical Descriptions, Growing Up, Menstruation, Mental Illness, Miscarriage, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sexual Harrasment, Strong Female Characters, Strong Language, hard knock life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 18:12:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12636459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenusTheMarvelTurtle/pseuds/VenusTheMarvelTurtle
Summary: She certainly cut a striking, if odd, figure- a slender human neck and pointed face emerging from the collar of a reinforced Krogan battlesuit, Graal rifle slung easily over her shoulder, biotic potential glimmering in the corners of her eyes."It should be obvious, sir," she grinned, the scars on her cheek pulling at the corner of her mouth. "I am a Krogan." The warriors behind her hooted and roared in approval, slamming metal gauntlets together in her praise.





	Duality (To be a Krogan)

**Author's Note:**

> (A/N: Though there will be a slight sprinkling of romance WAAAY later, this is not an Mary Sue! This is a found family/Tarzan-style/Superman origin story ish setup that I wanted to try out. First chapter is tame but this will become gory, abusive, and all around awful for this character. Yay!
> 
> If any of my Antithesis lovelies are seeing this...you wouldn't BELIEVE the semester I've had. The next chapter is nearly finished, along with some smut, and a few oneshots! Double yay? Don't kill me? Please?)

Late into the night, when the camp fires were cold and dead, and the varren far and away in the towering foothills of the empty Tuchankan plains were howling the songs of death and hunting to their prey- when the glaring menace of Aralakh’s burn finally sank beneath the irradiated sands and the others had thrown their last scowls of the day, the green rivers of chemicals and mocking light from the Shroud danced through the skies and wrapped the planet in a facsimile of security from above.

While the female camp slumbered, if the little girl was feeling brave, she would crawl silent and shivering from her jagged metal cradle of musty blankets and maneuver her way to the tent’s main sleeping ledge on tiny, five toed feet, soft and pink from above, yet thickened with pads of grey scar tissue beneath her tread.

On certain nights, if she was lucky, Mother would allow her to burrow into her large, muscular warmth and curl up against her leathery hide, pressing a cold and protrudant nose into the smoky folds of her shaman’s robes and the soothing _tat-tat-tat-tat, tat-tat-tat-tat_ of dual heartbeats, hidden from the scrutinizing disappointment of Auntie.

And if she was really, REALLY lucky, and mother was still awake, she might be treated to gentle digits carding through her hair and a deep, mellow rasp in her ear lulling her to sleep with the story of how she came to be.

“You came,” Urdnot Rogrra would rasp, as she cuddled her drowsy human child close, “from a shooting star.”

* * *

 

Of course, it hadn’t been a REAL shooting star. Things that fantastical didn’t happen outside of spirit tales and old legends, and those were hardly told anymore, if at all.

But mother always had a way of making her feel special.

Not a star, no- a shuttle pod, jettisoned from some unknown ship destroyed by pirates in a fiery clash just above Tuchanka’s atmosphere. The battle had been short, and watched by a few who had the vantage point to see it, chuckling maliciously at the moronic merchants being slaughtered above their heads and hoping that the resulting scrap from the conflict that would inevitably fall would be worth something credit wise.

When the twisted, blackened hull did fall, it did so towards the outer edge of the Nikhvok desert, giving the female clan that lived there first scavenging rights.  

"There was so much luck that day,” Mother would say. “You were lucky that you landed there, and lucky that I was sent to retrieve you.”

She was right. Had the ship- and by extension the shuttle- landed anywhere else, the child's fate would have been a lot different. A little further to the south, and no one would have reached it before the planet claimed her life. A lot farther to the east, and the males would have found her, and would have certainly left her to die.

“They wouldn’t have even bothered calling for the humans to collect you ” Mother would hiss, green eyes narrowing in her sudden spike of anger. “They would have let the varren tear you to pieces- my baby, to pieces! They would have laughed- they would have, they would have-”

Roggra would always get agitated at this point, and the child would cower against her chest, fearing both her Mother’s anger and the truth in her words.

Some nights, the dying campfire would suddenly spit and leap like a pissed off pyjack, seemingly stirred by the Krogan’s emotion, and the child would KNOW that the old magic Mother whispered about was real, laying beside her in flesh and blood form.

Mother _wasn’t_ crazy, whatever anyone else said. Yes, she still worshipped the old gods, the ones everyone said had given up on their people. Yes, she sang the old songs. Yes, her mind would wander, and her speech, and sometimes her entire self…but Mother wasn’t crazy. Mother was…Mother.

She would squirm and sniffle, momentarily afraid, and that was usually all it took to redirect the tale.  

“My love, where was I?” Mother would croon, cradling her ever closer. “Where was I…yes. The pod. Auntie told me to go, to gather, so there I went. And when we entered the ship…”

The child could picture it all in her mind, so many times had she heard it described. A smoking ruin of a ship, filled with bodies and cannon blast holes. A group of female Krogan swarming the wrecked shape, picking and pulling and salvaging. A hatch door pried open to reveal an intact pod, sealed and soundproofed. Inside it-

“You were covered in blood,” Mother told her reverently, “and screaming your lungs out. No more than a year old, naked as the day you were whelped. You stared right at me as you howled and hollered. Your fists were balled, like you were looking for a fight.”

“Pretty, Mother?” the child murmured, drawing her legs up to her thin chest.

“Beautiful,” Roggra affirmed, with a slow nod. “A birth befitting any Krogan. I saw your spirit that day, my star. I knew you wanted to live. And that made me want to live, too.”

The child wouldn’t know for years that Mother had been planning to wander one last time and let the maws take her away, to be with her other children in the Void, the ones killed by the disease created by the Salarians and the Turians.

At this point, the story would be coming to an end, and the child would cling to every last word the same way she clung to wakefulness.

“I took you home with me,” Roggra would say, “and I fought for the right to keep you. For months and months, I fought to keep you alive. And then,” she barked out a laugh, “and then, you went and bit Dagg.”

Urdnot Dagg, before he’d claimed his clan name. Auntie Hevog’s son. Dagg didn't like her. Neither did Auntie Hevog. No one did, come to think of it. No one except Mother, but Mother was all she needed, so it didn't matter much.

That was just the way things were, and had always been, and always would be.

“Tried to hurt me,” the child yawned. "Deserved it," she added, because she knew Mother liked it when she said things like that. When she said things that were strong.

“Yes,” Mother grunted. “He was trying to show off for the others. Thought it would be funny to dangle you over a gambling pit and make the varren fight over you.” She would shift, and the child knew she was smiling. “You bit him, and by the gods, we couldn’t make you let go. He still has the scar on his hand.”

She’d received her name, after that, earning the right to be acknowledged as a living being. Auntie had insisted, as clan leader, that it be one of her own choosing.

“She meant it to be an insult,” Mother scowled. “She knows who you were meant to be.” Then her tone softened. “You know who you are meant to be. And one day, you’ll show her. You’ll show them all.”

The child in her arms wouldn’t come to know the truth in those words for years to come. In that instant, Penkii- whose name meant “Weakness” in the old tongue- would only smile contentedly, and slip soundly off to sleep.


End file.
